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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to expect my family not to let themselves into my house with the spare key when I'm out?

73 replies

chicaguapa · 08/02/2011 10:29

My mum has used our spare key a couple of times when she's picked DC up from school, so she knows where we keep it. Last week she went shopping locally when I was at work and then let herself in with the spare key to make a cup of tea before heading home (45 minutes away). I don't suppose she was doing it secretly as she'll have known what time I get home and that I would have found her in the house (which is what happened). However she didn't ask me before doing it. I didn't mention anything although I was a bit peeved.

Last night my sister phoned to ask me if she and my mum could meet at my house (again while I'm at work) as they're going to view a house down the road and have half an hour to kill. So could they come round and have a cup of tea? I said I would let them know as I wasn't sure if I was going to be home (sometimes I work from home.) I later sent a text saying that I was going to be at work.

Fastforward to today. They are both outside my house and I get a phonecall asking if they can use the spare key to go in anyway and make a cup of tea before the house viewing. Also my mum has arranged to hand over a piece of furniture to someone she sold it to on eBay!

I don't mind them coming round, but I object to the thinking that my house is an open house with a spare key outside for them to let themselves in whenever they feel like it. AIBU?

OP posts:

plupervert · 08/02/2011 13:54

P.S. I didn't address the messing your house up business because anyone who thinks that's all right can't be reasoned with, whereas the threat of being robbed - through their fault - might actually get through to people like that.

Loopynoo · 08/02/2011 15:02

Ah, see I feel slightly guilty now as I live just down the road from my parents and we let ourselves into each others houses all the time, regardless whether anyone is home.

Nevermind spare keys, we have keys to each others houses on our key rings. I have never considered this weird, but now feel like a weirdo for such blatent abuse of respective facilities.

My mum comes over and does some house work when she fancies (weird I know, and am inwardly cringing whilst writing) or just has some quiet time in my living room and I pop round to theirs to let DS play in their huge garden all the time!

In the summer I often wander outside of a weekend to find my mum doing my gardening, and she tells me she has been there for hours. In fact a few weeks ago, I heard talking outside my house and she and my neighbour were having a chat whilst mum cut my hedge and I hadn't even known she was there!

(Just as an aside I do ofen help with her garden, but I don't get up early enough to beat her to it!)

My DP does find this weird and sometimes a little suffocating, but to be honest i would rather have it this way than any other, and I suspect he quite likes the freedom to visit escape to see my dad when he likes.

Megatron · 08/02/2011 15:12

YANBU I came home last week to find MIL (who has a key in case of 'emergencies') in my house having a cup of tea even though she knew I wouldn't be there as I am normally at work at that time.

I ALWAYS leave all the bedroom doors closed before I leave the house and our door was open so god knows what she'd been doing. Totally disrespectful IMO,

missmehalia · 08/02/2011 15:16

It's not on, really. Don't leave a key outside, as others have said. Just say to your mum that you've decided not to leave a key out anymore after advice from the police, and leave it at that. Surely she wouldn't have the hide to ask for a key??!!

YANBU

2rebecca · 08/02/2011 15:20

Did you get angry megatron? That is rude. I wouldn't have ranted as that's not my style but asked "why are you here when we aren't in. What's the emergency?" in a baffled voice and asked for the house key back before she left.

pranma · 08/02/2011 15:34

Weird to object to your mum coming in-would she object if you let yourself into her house?My dd and ds-i-l gave me a key to there house.I dont like to use it if they are out so the other day I sat in the car waiting for them.Ds-i-l turned up and said,'Why are you sitting out here?You have a key-use it any time.'She is your Mum.YABU.

pranma · 08/02/2011 15:35

just read the later posts-re your dsis YANBU-she is taking advantage

alemci · 08/02/2011 15:37

i wouldn't mind. my mum and my in laws have a key for my house. Also she is helping you out with your daughter.

Let her keep the key. My mum is annoying but she has helped me so much over the years with children etc and i had a key for her house. I did sometimes go there and make a tea etc if she wasnt there or use the loo etc and park my car there to walk to the shops.

if this is a one off with your sister and the house etc let it go. Afterall your sister may move there and then she could let herself in there instead.

Original poster

chicaguapa · 08/02/2011 15:37

The difference is, I think, that I haven't given my mum a key or told her she can use the spare one when she feels like it. I don't have a key to their houses and even if I knew they had a spare key I could access, I wouldn't expect it to be there for my use. Unless expressly told otherwise.

OP posts:

Underachieving · 08/02/2011 15:42

Loopynoo you don't need to cringe, clearly you have a reciprocal arrangement you're all comfortable with. That's a good thing if you all think so.

The point with the OP was more about not being comfortable with with a situation where family take more than they are offered. It's not about who's in the house that makes the OP's family unreasonable, it's that they walk all over her and don't respect her right to decide for herself who to share with. Even a chain and padlock wont stop them. Not at all like your family who like the open house arangement.

ENormaSnob · 08/02/2011 15:57

Yanbu

I would be livid.

alemci · 08/02/2011 17:03

i see now but do you not worry about having to leave the key out. must be a real worry.

brass · 08/02/2011 17:49

SIL goes into my bedroom when we are IN the house!

Last time she went in to try my boots I think. I could hear her clodding around.

She doesn't visit often so I think she thinks it's ok to go looking round the house, without asking!

I've resolved to getting a lock on the door. I would never dream of going into her bedroom but then we no longer visit them soooo.......

2rebecca · 09/02/2011 09:26

Why did you not just go upstairs and ask her what she was doing?

cumbria81 · 09/02/2011 10:36

YANBU. My parents have a spare key for my house in case of emergencies etc and they would never dream of letting themsleves in uninvited.

brass · 09/02/2011 10:46

I didn't get a chance as I was being 'host' downstairs and was making tea for all the kids! I would love to have appeared in the doorway suddenly and said 'what ON EARTH are you doing in my room?'

warthog · 09/02/2011 10:50

yanbu

gross invasion of privacy. i'd get the spare back pronto and tell them it's not on.

leaving a mess like they did would be the last straw for me - obv no respect there.

2rebecca · 09/02/2011 10:58

If I had heard someone banging around in my bedroom I'd have gone up to investigate even if I was making tea. My house isn't big enough that it would take more than a few seconds. I'd have said loudly "I think I can hear someone banging around in my bedroom, hang on whilst I check what's going on".

brass · 09/02/2011 11:18

Part of me felt like I'd be the lunatic dashing upstairs to catch her out iyswim?

She would have come out anyway if she'd heard me coming up I'm sure.

She's quite odd. We bought something for our boys. Age appropriate. Her DC are much younger. She saw the items and a few days later when we called DN on his birthday he said 'guess what I got?'

He'd got the same thing which she must have bought after seeing ours. But at his age I don't know what he'll get out of it!

Pixieonthemoor · 09/02/2011 11:25

My first reaction was - they are your mother and sister, why on earth would you mind esp as they have asked if its ok (just letting themselves in without telling you is not on). BUT, following your second post, if they are leaving the place in a state and not returning the key to its proper place then I would be very annoyed. YANBU.

GloriaSmut · 09/02/2011 12:06

I think the unreasonability depends entirely on the way that family members use the house. Because I'm someone who'd normally give a key out happily and, when my mother was alive, wouldn't have thought twice about it since her visits always resulted in a cleaner house and a delicious home-made cake left for me. I'd also trust my BIL and SIL with a key.

But I will confess to being underwhelmed during the first years of us living together when I discovered that dp's ex-wife (we do get on, incidentally, and I was not around at the time of their separation which had taken place many years earlier) was still using my house (their former marital home) as a handy dumping ground for possessions that my step-children had grown out of or worse, had been in and borrowed things. So I'd get home from an evening out and find a very pleasant note that said "Hiya Gloria & Notsogloriousmut! Have been into costume cupboard and borrowed hat for Spanish outfit. PS. Dog was pleased to see me so I gave him some Gravy Bones. Cheerio! xxx"

I didn't feel cheered by this, in fact, I was fucking livid every time it happened.I also knew how unpopular we'd be if we'd driven over to her place and wandered in, uninvited. So and I told dp that it'd have to stop since this was now my house as well as his. After prevaricating for a few months I just went ahead and changed the locks. She did at least have the good grace to say nothing at all but I wish I'd been a fly on the porch wall when she made her next "borrowing" trip!

From what the OP says, her mother's use of the house has now crossed the line between perfectly reasonable use and utter pisstake since arranging to meet third parties without the courtesy of informing her really isn't on.

GloriaSmut · 09/02/2011 12:06

PS. And neither is leaving the property in a mess.

mumof4sons · 09/02/2011 12:28

I'd have let them make a cup of tea. Plus ask them to do the washing up and put on a load of laundry too. Oh, and walk the dog.

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